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Saturday, December 19, 2009

The Ugly Egyptian

The latest crisis between Egypt and Algeria showed how many people whether in the Arab world or the rest of the world think about us and it is not positive :

We are liars , poor,pathetic, rude, loud , arrogant, pimps, whores ,dirty , ignorant ,thieves , illiterate who never had new kind of achievement in their miserable life and probably the world will be better place without us. We are a dictatorship with a media control , we are a country with high rate of sexual harassment , unemployment , poverty and illiteracy “despite the fact that it has declined to 26%” . We are the friends of America and Israel who did not win a single war ; we do not have a specific independence day now like other countries despite the fact our official independence is on the 22nd of February 1922 even if it were not complete independence but at least it was recorded in history that our 1919 revolution had inspired other countries to follow our path including the Indian independence movement in the 20th century. We are chauvinists and racists who make fun even from other Egyptians from Upper Egypt “ You only have to hear our jokes about Upper Egypt and its people to see how we could be so mean with our own country people”. We are the exporters of terrorists , pimps, crooks and hookers to the Arab world , we are also the country of Shaaban Abdel Rahim and Zaina after being the country of Abdel Halim Hafiz and Fatan Hamma.These are just from the few things I have read directly or indirectly online about us in the past four weeks.

There is not a week where you do not find a negative report about us in the international media tickling either our political dictatorship or our economic injustice or our falling part society. We have become a media sensation for sure for Western media , may be because we are open society than other societies in the region which usually more closed than us.

The above negative characteristics can be replaced with a whole blog not a whole post full of how great and noble we were , we are and will be. Yes we have some of these bad cons like being loud and sometimes rude but those who called the rest of these names should think again about themselves more and more. I will not say that Egyptians had done this and that for you because I believe it is our duty if we want to lead this region and I want my country to complete leading it , in fact according to those who really understand the region and forces of change in it the really change comes from the valley of the Nile not from any where else. Yes in the 20th century politically the Arab countries copied our totalitarian regimes through out the century but if you think about it you can’t put all the blame on us or you can ; look to all those lovely things said about us above and you will know that this is the least we can be accused of.

It is beyond a game , the game was just the tip of the ice berg , the falling domino piece that showed how fragile our Arab-Arab relations have become now. Anyhow back to my Egyptian identity analysis this is how bad we are in the eyes of those who can’t stomach us and also some of our friends and allies. “ if we have any for real now” .

We have become ugly in the eyes of the world because of this current rotten regime that did not give shit to our image in the outside world nor inside and it is not about this game ; it is about everything ;it is about the ugly economic policies that forced the Egyptians to sell them, it is about our ugly traffic , it is about our ugly trash everywhere , it is about the ugly treatment of humans before animals ..it is about ugly regime with ugly policies and ugly future plans. The regime does not care about us nor our image inside the country , it is a regular thing expected from a suppressive regime that only cares for its control. The regime made us cheap , made us feel cheap in our home and so we are cheap in the eyes of the world ; do not give a damn for them they are cheap people whom you can insult as you want ; they do not understand nor comprehend they will just scream till their voice gone.

We are also very patient , too damn patient to the level of building a pyramid in 20 years but as the Old Arabs said : Beware the patient’s anger and I will say beware the ugly Egyptian’s real anger !!

9 comments
:

Very nice post, Zeinobia - very nice in a sad way. I feel the same way about Egypt and I am very sorry about it, it actually makes me think that this is no new for Egypt - it has always been like that, hasn't it?

Part of that description could suit any other country men attitude;)"We have become ugly in the eyes of the world": that is not true and generally speaking, I think all of us should moderate self-criticism often fed with a form of despair.Anyway, things like sexual harassment will not stop, one, because it is by encouraged by mubarak's regime who maintain most people of Egypt in poverty to better control them and second, as long as men are tempted every day to copy western ways of living (sexual freedom and son on) and at the same time, cannot satisfy their natural needs, like having a job, a house, a family, it will remain "la quadrature du cercle". Egyptian people, to me, are those described by Mahfouz.I bought it but have not read it yet the last El Aswany's book "j'aurais voulu être un Egyptien", last one I read last year was "Chicago", much more depressive than "Yacoubian building". Getting rid of mubarak is the solution, easier to say than do but no choice if you want to be proud again of Egypt.

That being the case, reacting to them with defiance and defensiveness does not help in any way - there's no smoke without fire.

One criticism that I level against official and blogospheric Egypt is that it predominantly works on the level of generalisations with no room for constuctive critical analysis of the problems at hand.

People also seem prone to dwell in the opiates of 'historical legacies' and 'leadership rights' with no tangible grip of the realities of the world, and region we live in today.

History is nice but over, the present is real and different.

All is fair when it comes to defending Egypt.

On this blog and on others, I've highlighted the 'problem' that exists in how Egypt's media depicts Nubians, Sudanese people and other black Africans and black Africa in general - and no mere recognition of the problem has been forthcoming....

I would like to underline the fact, that I believe other peoples in the region, despite hating the Mubarak clan and its crawling in front of the so called "West", makes a clear defenition between Egyptian gov and its people. Your neighbours don't hate you. Only your gov.

Egyptian people, as far as I had changes to know, are so friendly! They make you feel as royal and the hospitality of ordinary Egyptians is unlimited. (I'm not of course speaking the behaviour toward tourists which are for many object of everyday bread in the table and gets nasty sides).

We have an idea of what's Egypt and what's the ruling class. We want you to come back. We are waiting you to come back. Then you can play a central role again. Ramz al-arab is in our minds. The question is: how much is left of it after Mubarak, and what are the side effects after getting rid of it.

Hi dear , thank you for your post its really good ,and don't be upset about what MR.JOHN had said ,its so obvious that he have know idea about the relationship between the government and the people,so keep your spirit up and keep going .

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